(1) On the eve of opening statements in the impeachment trial of US President
Bill Clinton, both the prosecution and defense are looking forward to the
still unresolved issue of whether witnesses will testify
before the Senate. Monica Lewinsky's attorney turns down a request from
the House Judiciary Committee for an interview with the woman at the center
of this sex-and perjury trial. Over the past 24-hours there is initial contact
between Lewinsky lawyer Plato Cacheris and the Judiciary Committee staff,
asking for the former-White House intern to grant an interview with committee
staffers and perhaps some committee members. The working assumption from
the committee members is that they are "duty bound," according to committee
sources, to "collect relevant evidence" to the case. There is the possibility
that the Judiciary Committee could subpoena Lewinsky under their independent
subpoena rights, but there is no indication the committee will go ahead
and exercise that right. The president's defense brief, delivered to the
Senate today, makes clear the White House will ask for a lengthy recess
in the proceedings for "discovery" if the House prosecutors are granted
permission to call even just one witness to testify. The document complains
that White House lawyers have not had access to the reams of information
that were sent to the House Judiciary Committee, and if any witnesses are
to be allowed, the White House would demand access to those documents to
see if they had any relevance to the proposed testimony. The president's
defense team says it would also ask to depose any witnesses prior to their
trial testimony, as well as to depose others who might have knowledge about
the testimony the proposed witness would offer. The document does not make
clear how long a delay the White House might request, but says, "Fundamental
fairness dictates that the president be given at least the same right as
an ordinary litigant to obtain evidence necessary for his defense, particularly
when a great deal of that evidence is presently in the hands of his accusers,
the OIC (Office of the Independent Counsel) and the House managers."

(2)
In preparation for 14 January, the Senate leadership distributes a one-page
memo to Republican senators outlining proper decorum
for the impeachment trial. The memo says senators should be in attendance
at all times during the proceedings. Other guidelines are more mundane,
saying, "As we are all aware, senators will only have the opportunity
for limited speech at the trial. We should also refrain from speaking
to neighboring senators while the case is presented," the memo reads.
Also, senators cannot read while the trial is in session. "Our individual
reading materials should be confined to only those readings which pertain
to the matter before the Senate," the memo states. Senators are also reminded
in the memo to stand for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is presiding
over the trial, and refer to him as "Mr. Chief Justice." Senators must
also stay out of the well of the Senate and turn off all cellular telephones
and pagers. Prior to distributing the memo, the Republican leadership
ask Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) to approve it.

(3) President Bill Clinton says that he intends to go ahead with his State
of the Union speech on 19 January 1999, even though the Senate
impeachment trial is ongoing. But Clinton has no plans to address the charges
at that time, saying "the American people have heard about that quite extensively
over the last year." "I think they (the American people) would like it if
somebody up here were putting their interests first, their business first,
and I think that's what they expect me to do," Clinton says. "We have to
deal with the problems of America, the challenges of America, the opportunities
of America, and that's what I intend to do in the State of the Union speech,"
he says. The president is spending hours this week reviewing and polishing
speech drafts. He may do a full scale rehearsal in the White House family
theater as soon as today. The nation will be watching. Last year Clinton
gave the speech just days after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and the
television audience was about 25% larger than average. This year aides expect
even more people to tune in. Many lawmakers have urged the president to
delay his speech or submit it in written form while the Senate is conducting
its trial. Some senators say it would be awkward to receive the president
as an honored guest on Capitol Hill while they sit in judgment. A senior
aide also says first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will be watching from the
visitors' balcony.

(4) A check for $850,000 is on its way today to an attorney
for Paula Jones, officially ending the sexual harassment
lawsuit that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. "This ends
it," a White House official says. "The check is being Fed-Exed" to lawyer
Bill McMillan. But just because President Clinton has mailed an $850,000
settlement check doesn't mean the Paula Jones case is wrapped up. The
check is made out to Paula Jones and to her current and former lawyers.
And the two sets of lawyers are fighting with each other over legal fees.
The check may be placed in the custody of US District Judge Susan Webber
Wright until the dispute is resolved. Mrs. Jones must respond no later
than 15 January to an $874'000 claim in legal fees from her former lawyers
in the sexual harassment case, Joseph Cammarata and Gilbert Davis. "We
have said when the case was settled that we would want to have a reasonable
division of that. And if all are fair and reasonable and not greedy, that
it can be resolved without court intervention," Cammarata has said. But
Cammarata says Mrs. Jones' camp responded with a threatening letter and
a take-it-or-leave-it offer of $25,000, so Cammarata and Davis went to
court. Neither Cammarata nor Mrs. Jones' current lawyer, Bill McMillan,
would comment on how much of the settlement check they thought should
go to Cammarata and Davis.

(5) Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, whose paying
for information about the private lives of politicians sparked national
controversy, is hospitalized with pneumonia after winning a conditional
delay in a pornography trial because of planned surgery. Flynt is admitted
to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after X-rays show the pneumonia,
says one of his lawyers, Alan Isaacman. A spokesman for the hospital says
he had been instructed not to release any information about Flynt. Flynt,
55, and his brother, Jimmy, 49, were indicted in Cincinnati, Ohio, and
faced trial later this month on charges of selling pornography to a 14-year-old
boy. The charges stem from the alleged sale of a sexually explicit video
to the boy at the Hustler Magazine and Gifts store that Jimmy Flynt manages
in Cincinnati. If convicted, each brother could get 24 years in prison
and $65'000 in fines. The Flynts' trial was postponed until 05 April after
defense lawyers filed a motion this week seeking a continuance, saying
Larry Flynt needed surgery for a urological problem common among paraplegics.
Flynt has been in a wheelchair since he was shot in 1978. Isaacman said
the pneumonia appeared to be unrelated to that condition.

(6) Elizabeth Ward Gracen, an actress who says she had an affair
with Bill Clinton while he was Arkansas governor, is being hounded
by the US tax authorities, her lawyer claims today. The Treasury Department
is already investigating why the Internal Revenue Service audited the
records of another woman involved with the president, Paula Jones. While
it may be coincidence, the IRS inquiries are reminiscent of Richard Nixon's
efforts to frighten Washington journalists on his Watergate "enemies list".
He ordered aides to delve into the finances of critics to see if they
were tax fiddlers. Gracen, a former Miss America and star of the Highlander
television series, has confessed to a fling with Mr Clinton in 1983 after
he joined her in a limousine during an Arkansas parade. Last April, Gracen
maintained that "It was not true that I was ever harassed or coerced or
pressured or manipulated into having sex with Bill Clinton. That was not
true." But last September she told the Toronto Star newspaper about alleged
intimidation of her family and friends after going public about the tryst.
She said she feared for her safety. Her lawyer, Vincent Vento, says a
male caller has contacted her in Canada, where she has been filming, with
a warning: "You should really keep your mouth shut about Bill Clinton
and go on with your life. You could be discredited. You could have an
IRS investigation." This is reportedly the same caller who tipped Gracen
off that process servers were seeking her as a witness to the Paula Jones
lawsuit and who advised her to avoid process by going into hiding. Mr
Vento says that Gracen has been deluged with letters from the tax man
claiming that she had not filed returns and threatening to seize her wages
and property. He tells the New York Post: "She pays her taxes. She's really
square." Reports of possible White House-linked "dirty tricks" are not
new. Kathleen Willey, who claims to have been groped by Mr Clinton, became
frightened after her cat vanished and an anonymous jogger made vague threats.
Linda Tripp secretly taped Monica Lewinsky as protection against her fear
of strong-arm tactics. Larry Flynt, the pornographer, is suspected of
being given outside help in his pursuit of Republican critics of the president's
sexual misconduct. He denies this.

1994 Italian government of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi resigns.
He was not a politician but a former governor of the Bank of Italy, chosen
to reassure investors and to prevent a disastrous flight from the lira. 1994 Tonya Harding's bodyguard, Shawn Eric Eckardt and
Derrick Brian Smith arrested and charged with conspiracy in attack of skater
Nancy Kerrigan 1992 Japan apologizes for forcing
tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers
during World War II. 1991 President Mario Soares
of Portugal re-elected.1990 Douglas Wilder of Virginia
becomes the US's first elected Black governor as he took the oath of office.

^1989 Subway gunman goes to prison
Subway gunman Bernhard Goetz begins
1-year prison sentence, of which he served 8-1/2 months. In his 1987
criminal trial. Goetz, who did not testify, was acquitted of attempted
murder charges for the 22 Dec 1984 shooting. He was convicted on a
weapons charge. On 24 April 1996, a jury in a civil
suit found that Goetz acted recklessly and deliberately inflicted
emotional distress on Darrell Cabey, one of the four black teenagers
shot, paralyzed and brain-damaged as a result.. The jury awarded Cabey
$43 million in damages  $18 million for past and future pain
and suffering, and $25 million in punitive damages. But Cabey is not
likely to see anywhere near that amount since Goetz has little money.
In such cases it is common for the court to garnish 10% of the defendant's
wages for 20 years.

1987 7 top New York Mafia bosses sentenced to 100 years
in prison each 1980 Togo's constitution becomes
effective. It formally civilianizes Togo under one-party rule headed by
President Eyadema (still the president 000113) and the Rally of the Togolese
People.1974 A Gallup poll on religious worship
showed that fewer Protestants and Roman Catholics were attending weekly
services than ten years earlier, but that attendance at Jewish worship services
had increased over the same period.

^1967 Military coup in Togo.
Chief of staff Étienne Lieutenant-Colonel
Etienne Gnassingbé Eyadema seizes power in Togo by a coup and dissolves
all political parties. On January 13 1963, after returning to Togo
as a sergeant, Eyadema had shot dead the then president Sylvanus Olympio,
who had refused to take him and 625 other Togolese veterans of French
wars into Togo's tiny army.
had attained the rank of sergeant when he returned to Togo in 1962.
When President , a group of them, including Eyadema, murdered him
in an otherwise almost bloodless military coup (January 1963) and
installed a civilian, Nicolas Grunitzky, as president
Grunitzky was invited to return from exile and assume the presidency,
and he was confirmed in office in subsequent elections that also created
a new constitution and legislature. Most of the noncommissioned officers
were integrated into an expanded army — many as commissioned
officers. Cabinet infighting, aggravated in the south by Ewe feelings
that with Olympio's assassination they had lost power to Grunitzky's
largely pro-northern administration, led to chronic instability. On
Jan. 13, 1967, Eyadema, then a lieutenant colonel and chief of staff,
once again. Coup in Togo

1966 First black selected for US Presidential cabinet:Lyndon
B. Johnson names economist Robert Clifton Weaver [photo] head
of the new Department
of Housing and Urban Development. Weaver was head of the preceding federal
Housing and Home Finance Agency since his 1960 appointment by John F. Kennedy.
1964 Karol Wojtyla becomes
archbishop of Krakow 1959 De Gaulle grants
amnesty to 130 to Algerian death row convicts 1958
US communist newspaper Daily Worker ceases publication as a daily
and becomes a weekly as The Worker. A decade later it resumed daily
publication Tuesdays through Saturdays and changed names again in an effort
to reach a broader audience as the Daily World.

^1958 Petition
to UN for nuclear test ban by 9000 scientists of 43
nations but is is only 630805 that the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty would
be signed by the United States, the USS.R., and the United Kingdom.
The treaty banned nuclear-weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer
space, and underwater but permitted underground testing and required
no control posts, no on-site inspection, and no international supervisory
body. It did not reduce nuclear stockpiles, halt the production of
nuclear weapons, or restrict their use in time of war. The treaty
was signed within a few months by more than 100 governments, notable
exceptions being France and the People's Republic of China.

1954 Military rule in Egypt; 318 Mohammedan Brotherhood
arrested 1953 Marshal Josip Broz Tito, 60, continues
to rule Yugoslavia, as he had since 1945, just changing his title from premier
to president. 1943 US infantry captures Galloping
Horse ridge, Guadalcanal 1943 Russian offensive
at Don under General Golikov 1943 Hitler declares
"Total War" 1943 British premier Winston Churchill
arrives in Casablanca 1942 German U-boats begin
harassing shipping on US east coast

^1942 War criminals will be prosecuted.
Representatives of nine German-occupied
countries meet in London to declare that all those found guilty of
war crimes would be punished after the war ended. Among the signatories
to the declaration were Polish Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski and French
Gen. Charles de Gaulle. The core of the declaration was the promise
of "the punishment, through the channels of organized justice, of
those guilty of, or responsible for, these crimes, whether they have
ordered them, perpetrated them, or participated in them." Knowledge
of German atrocities occurring in Poland and Russia were reaching
both the Allied governments and the exiles from the countries in which
the butchering of innocents was taking place. News of Jews, political
dissidents, and clergy being systematically murdered, tortured, or
transported to labor camps as the Nazi ideology advanced along with
Hitler's armed forces increased the resolve and solidarity among the
Allies to defeat the Axis.

1942 Interallied war trial conference publishes Saint
James Declaration 1935 Plebiscite in Saar, chooses
(90.3%) to join Nazi Germany rather than France.After World War I the Saar
coal mines had been awarded to France, and the Saarland placed under the
administration of the League of Nations for 15 years.1930
"Mickey Mouse" comic strip first appears (Lost on a Desert
Island) Mickey Mouse had debuted on 18 November 1928 in the animated
cartoon Steamboat Willie. 1927 US and
Mexico dispute over oil interests

^1922 End of
Conference of Cannes, where the Allies searched
for common ground on reparations, a security pact, and Lloyd George's
scheme for a grand economic conference including Soviet Russia. But
the French chamber rebelled, and Aristide Briand was replaced as prime
minister by the wartime president, Poincaré, who was determined to
relieve France's triple crisis without sacrificing its treaty rights.

1920 New York Times editorial (falsely) reports rockets
can never fly 1915 Winston Churchill presents
plan for assault on Dardanelles 1912 -40ºF (-40ºC),
Oakland MD (state record) 1906 first radio set
advertised (Telimco for $7.50 in Scientific American) claimed to receive
signals from up to one mile away.

^1898 Zola's J'accuse letter is printed French writer Emile Zola's J'accuse...!,
is printed in L'Aurore. The letter exposes a military cover-up
regarding Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus, a French army captain, had been
accused of espionage in 1894 and sentenced in a secret military court-martial
to imprisonment in a South American penal colony. Two years later, evidence
of Dreyfus' innocence surfaced, but the army suppressed the information.
Zola charges various high-ranking military officers and, indeed, the War
Office itself of concealing the truth in the wrongful conviction of Dreyfus.
Zola was prosecuted for libel and and sentenced to one year's imprisonment.
In July 1899, when his appeal appeared certain to fail, he fled to England.
In 1899, Dreyfus was pardoned, but for political reasons was not exonerated
until 1906. Zola returned to France in June 1900. Zola's intervention in
the controversy helped to undermine anti-Semitism and rabid militarism in
France. Zola died unexpectedly on
28 September 1902, the victim of coal gas asphyxiation resulting from a
blocked chimney flue. Some believe that fanatical anti-Dreyfusards arranged
to have the chimney blocked. Born on
2 April 1840, Zola grew up in poverty and twice flunked the baccalauréat.
Employed in the advertising department of Hachette, in 1865 Zola published
his first novel, La Confession de Claude, a sordid, semiautobiographical
tale that drew the attention of the public and the police. Zola left Hachette.
In 1867 he published Thérèse Raquin,
first published serially as Un Mariage d'Amour earlier in the same
year. The sensual Thérèse and her lover Laurent murder her
weak husband Camille. After marrying, they are haunted by Camille's ghost,
and their passion for each other turns to hatred. They eventually kill themselves.
In 1868 Zola published Madeleine
Férat, a rather unsuccessful attempt at applying the principles of
heredity to the novel. It was this
interest in science that led Zola, in the fall of 1868, to conceive the
idea of a large-scale series of novels similar to Honoré de Balzac's La
Comédie humaine.. Zola's project would become the 20 volumes of
the Rougon-Macquart series (deux branches d'une même famille: l'une issue
d'un mariage, les riches et puissants Rougon, l'autre issue d'un adultère,
les pauvres Macquart: les
personages). La Fortune des Rougon was published in book form
in October 1871. Zola went on to produce these 20 novels — most of
which are of substantial length — at the rate of nearly one per year,
completing the series in 1893. Les
Rougon-Macquart is "the natural and social history of a family under the
Second Empire." (1852-70).
La Curée (1872)explores the land speculation and financial dealings
that accompanied the renovation of Paris during the Second Empire. Le Ventre de Paris (1873) examines the structure of the Halles
and its influence on the lives of its workers. The 10 steel pavilions that
make up the market are compared alternately to a machine, a palace, and
an entire city. Son
Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876) traces the machinations
and maneuverings of cabinet officials in Napoleon III's government. L'Assommoir
(1877) shows the effects of alcoholism in a working-class neighborhood by
focusing on the rise and decline of a laundress, Gervaise Macquart. Nana
(1880) follows the life of Gervaise's daughter as her economic circumstances
and hereditary penchants lead her to a career as an actress, then a courtesan.
Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
depicts the mechanisms of a new economic entity, the department store, and
its impact on smaller merchants. Germinal
(1885) depicts life in a mining community by highlighting relations between
the bourgeoisie and the working class. At the same time, the novel weighs
the For a miners' strike and its aftermath in terms of those contemporary
political movements (Marxism, anarchism, trade unionism) that purport to
deal with the problems of the proletariat.L'uvre
(1886), explores the milieu of the art world and the interrelationship of
the arts by means of the friendship between an innovative Impressionist
painter, Claude Lantier, and a naturalist novelist, Pierre Sandoz. Unable
to realize his creative potential, the painter ends up hanging himself in
front of his final painting. In La
Terre (1887), a particularly grim portrait of peasant life,
Zola shows what he considers to be the sordid lust for land among the French
peasantry. In La
Bête humaine (1890) he analyzes the hereditary urge to kill
that haunts the Lantier branch of the family, set against the background
of the French railway systemt. La
Débâcle (1892) traces both the defeat of the French army
by the Germans at the Battle of Sedan in 1870 and the anarchist uprising
of the Paris Commune. In Le
Docteur Pascal (1893) Zola uses the main character, the
doctor Pascal Rougon, armed with a genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquart
family published with the novel, to expound the theories of heredity underlying
the entire series. In the early '70s
Zola expanded his literary contacts, meeting frequently with Gustave Flaubert,
Edmond Goncourt, Alphonse Daudet, and Ivan Turgenev, all successful novelists
whose failures in the theatre led them to humorously refer to themselves
as auteurs sifflés ("hissed authors"). Beginning in 1878 the Zola home in
Médan, on the Seine River not far from Paris, served as a gathering spot
for a group of the novelist's disciples, the best-known of whom were Guy
de Maupassant and Joris-Karl Huysmans, and together they published a collection
of short stories, Les
Soirées de Médan (1880).
As the founder and most celebrated member of the naturalist movement, Zola
published several treatises to explain his theories on art, including Le
Roman expérimental (1880) and Les Romanciers naturalistes
(1881). Naturalism involves the application to literature of two scientific
principles: determinism, or the belief that character, temperament, and,
ultimately, behavior are determined by the forces of heredity, environment,
and historical moment; and the experimental method, which entails the objective
recording of precise data in controlled conditions.
Zola's final series of novels, Les Trois Villes (1894-98) and Les
Quatre Évangiles (1899-1903) are generally conceded to be far less
forceful than his earlier work. However, the titles of the novels in the
latter series reveal the values that underlay his entire life and work:
Fécondité (1899), Travail (1901), Vérité (1903),
and Justice (which remained incomplete).

1894 Revolution in Sicily crushed by government troops. 1874 US troops land in Honolulu to protect (?) the king
Lunalilo (who
died of tuberculosis in February 1874!) 1874
Battle between jobless and police in New York City NY, 100s injured 1865 Federals attack Fort Fisher NC.1863
Thomas
Crappermakes
and markets toilets but probably did not invent much. It had been invented
by Sir John Harrington in the 16th century.1854
Anthony Foss patents the accordion, but he was not the first. 1833President
Andrew Jackson wrote to his newly-elected vice president, Martin
Van Buren, that he would stand firm against South Carolina's defiance
of the authority of the federal government. The previous
November, South Carolina had nullified a federal tariff favoring Northern
manufacturing over Southern agriculture. South Carolina threatened to use
armed force to prevent duty collection in the state after February 1, 1833.
1830 Great fire in New Orleans thought to be set
by rebel slaves
1794
Congress changes US
flag to 15 stars and 15 stripes. The two added stars
and two stripes are for Kentucky and Vermont. This was the only US flag
to have fifteen stripes. In 1818, Congress proclaimed that one star for
each new state would be added on the 4th of July following the state's admission
to the union and there would be thirteen stripes representing the thirteen
original colonies. The 15 star flag flew over Fort McHenry during the War
of 1812 and inspired the writing of the National Anthem, The Star Spangled
Banner.
1695
Jonathan Swift is ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland 1630 Patent to Plymouth Colony issued
1610 Galileo Galilei discovers a 4th satellite of Jupiter, which
gets the name Callisto, after the nymph loved by Zeus. 1559
Elizabeth I is crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey [portrait >] 1099 Crusaders set fire to Mara Syria 0888
Le duc Eudes devient roi de France, les Grands l'ayant choisi,
sans en avoir d'ailleurs le droit, pour remplacer Charles le Gros (884-887),
qui avait fait preuve de lâcheté en offrant la Bourgogne aux Normands contre
l'arrêt du siège de Paris. Eudes, fils de Robert le Fort, était populaire
pour sa résistance contre les envahisseurs. Mais Eudes ne réussit pas à
repousser complètement les Normands, et les Grands remirent le fils de Louis
II le Bègue, Charles III le Simple (893-923) sur le trône. Eudes restait
cependant puissant.

2006 The 2 pilots of a US Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopter
which is shot down near Mosul, Iraq, after coming to the aid of Iraqi police
under fire. —(060113)2005 Dror Gizri; Herzl Shlomo, 51;
Ivan Shmilov, 54; Munam Abu Sabia, 33; Ibrahim Kahili, 46; and another Israeli
civilian; two suicide bombers; and Muhamed Al-Mansi, 18, and another Palestinian
gunman, at the closed-for-the-night Karni crossing between Israel
and the Gaza Strip, after a large explosion at 22:45 (20:45 UT) blasts the
door. Then Palestinians fire mortars and light arms at Israelis, who fight
back. Four Israelis are wounded. In retaliation an Israeli helicopter fires
two missiles into the Deir el Balah refugee camp at a medical center run
by an Islamic charity, Al Salah, with links to Hamas; and the Israelis announce
the complete isolation of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the “indefinite”
closure to them of its three crossings: Karni and Erez at the Israeli border,
and Rafah at the Egyptian border.2005 All 20 soldiers aboard
a Black Hawk helicopter which crashes near Tumaco, Colombia, during a counternarcotics
mission.2005 All 9 persons aboard an Antonov-2 plane
which crashes in Siberia. 2005 The driver of a minibus and
five Iraqi employees of Turkish businessman Abdulkadir Tanrikulu,
who is abducted by the killers just after boarding the minibus in front
of the Bakhan Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq. Tanrikulu ran a construction company
that worked with the US occupiers.2005
Mouayad Sami, murdered in front of his house in Baqoubah, Iraq,
where he was a member of the Diyala province's local council.2005
Iraqi National Guard Capt. Hamed Hassan Salman, killed
in a market in Qaim, Iraq.2004 Ro'i Arbel, 28, late
in the evening, Israeli shot in his car by ambushed Palestinians, at the
entrance of the enclave settlement Talmon, near Ramallah, West Bank. Three
others with him in the car are wounded. Ro'i and his wife Hagit were the
parents of five: four girls: Or, 5; Hodaya, 3; and the 2-month-old triplets
Tal and Emuna; the other triplet is a boy.. 2004 Harold Shipman[pre-1999 photo >], born on 14 January 1946, is found at
06:20 UT (= local) hanging in his cell in Wakefield prison, England, where
he was serving a life sentence. He was a drug-addicted family doctor who,
from 1975 to 1998, for reasons unknown, killed with heroin injection at
least 215 of his patients (171 women and 44 men), aged from 41 (a man) to
93 (a woman), which he never confessed. But in 2000 he was convicted of
murdering 15 of them.2003 At least 14 persons and
a truckful of pigs, during the morning rush hour in heavy fog on the Venice~Treviso
highway in 200-vehicle pileup following the minor collision of two northbound
trucks, into which speeding vehicles slam; while rubberneckers crash on
the southbound side. Some of the vehicles catch fire, including the pigs'
truck. 80 persons are injured.2002 Boyd Taylor, 36,
suicide by decapitation by a guillotine he made himself, activated by a
timer set for an early hour, in Milbourne, Northumberland, England.2002 Mike Hurewitz, 57, in Mount Sinai Hospital, where
he was since donating, on 10 January 2002, part of his liver to his brother,
Dr. Adam Hurewitz, 54, (who made a normal recovery). The surgeon who performed
the transplant did not come back to examine Mike. On 12 January another
doctor examined him but did not check his vital signs. In the morning of
13 January, Mike becomes nauseated, is given medicine, but no one tries
to discover the cause. At 13:00 Mike vomits blood, the only physician caring
for the 34 patients in the transplant unit, an inexperienced first-year
resident, calls a more senior doctor, who comes but does not examine Mike.
By 14:00 Mike needs an oxygen mask. By 15:00 he is still vomiting and has
trouble breathing, a nurse calls the inexperienced resident. At 15:00, choking
on his vomited blood, Mike loses consciousness. Rescucitation is attempted,
but he is declared dead at 15:40. On 12 March 2002 the New York state health
commissioner says that Mount Sinai has provided woefully inadequate
postsurgical care to Mike Hurewitz, will be fined $48'000 (the highest penalty
allowed by law) and banned for 6 months from doing live-doner liver transplants. 2001 More than 800 in earthquake, mostly in El Salvador,
at 17:33:29 UT, magnitude
7.6, epicenter at 12.83 N, 88.79 W, depth 39 km, 100 km SW of San Miguel,
El Salvador. [map below: yellow lines are plate boundaries] [photo below:
most of the deaths occured when this landslide buried many homes in the
Las Colinas neighborhood of Santa Tecla, near San Salvador. The owners of
the mountain slope had been sued some time ago because of the danger of
landslides caused by their deforestation, but the court sided with the owners.]

2001 Allan Bani Odeh and Majdi Mikkawi, Palestinians
executed by Palestinians firing squads in the West Bank city of Nablus and
in Gaza, respectively, for helping Israelis locate and murder alleged Palestinian
terrorists. To date the al-Aqsa intifada, started in late September 2000,
has claimed the lives of 307 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs, and 43 Jewish
Israelis.
1996 Souley Halidou, beaten
to death with a stick by his cousin Hassan Salou, in Moli, some 70 km from
Niamey, Niger. Hassan feared for his mother's safety since Souley had killed
two of his relatives over a land dispute and had hired a town crier to announce
that he would kill again. Hassan then cut the corpse to pieces with a machete
and ate a blood-soaked piece of bread before going to the police with the
left arm of his victim. In 2001 he told a court: "I was perfectly sane,
I wanted to protect my mother and the others in the village, because everyone
wondered who would be Souley's next victim. Why did I dip the bread in his
blood? I wanted to feel that he was dead, to convince myself that he wouldn't
bother anybody anymore." On 30 January 2001 the court, considering the "mitigating
circumstances", would sentence Hassan Halidou to the minimum sentence of
10 years in prison.
1996
Amber Hagerman, 9 [< photo], abducted in the afternoon
as she rides her bicycle form her grandparents' house in Arlington, Texas,
and her throat cut. Her nude body is found 4 days later. In July 1997 the
Amber
Alert system is started in her memory, to give extensive publicity
to missing children in danger of death. 1993 René
Pleven Prime Minister of France (1950-51, 51-52)1991::
14 persons as Soviet troops stormed Lithuania's radio-television
center.1988 Chiang Ching-kuo, 81, President of Taiwan
(1978-88) 1986 'Abd al-Fattah Isma'il,
who had been the major ideologue of the National Liberation Front of South
Yemen and the driving force behind the organization's move toward the Soviet
Union. He became president after president Salim 'Ali Rubayyi executed for
the 1978 assassination of a North Yemen president (the previous North Yemen
president had been assassinated in 1977),. Ultimately, Isma'il was found
to be too dogmatic and rigid — in his analyses, policies, and methods
of implementation — and was deposed in 1980. His successor, 'Ali Nasir
Muhammad, instituted a far less dogmatic political and economic order. In
January 1986, the various personal and ideological differences surfaced
briefly in a violent civil war that left Isma'il and many of his supporters
dead, and resulted in the exile of 'Ali Nasir Muhammad. 1985
At least 428 people as express train derails in Ethiopia. 1982:: 78 persons on Air Florida 737 which, just after
taking off in a snowstorm, crashes into the 14th St Bridge in Washington,
DC, and falls into the icy Potomac River. 1978 Hubert Horatio
Humphrey, 66, (Senator-D-MN, Vice President), in Waverly MN.1977 All 96 aboard an Aeroflot Tupolev 104A, coming from
Novosibirsk, which explodes at Almaty, Kazakhstan, at an altitude of 300
mt while orbiting to burn up fuel following an engine failure.1969
Fifteen persons as a SAS DC-8-62 airplane crashes into the ocean
near Los Angeles.

1963 Sylvanus Olympio, president
of Togo who had refused to take 626 Togolese veterans of French wars into
Togo's tiny army, is shot dead by one of them, sergeant Etienne Gnassingbé
Eyadema, and then Nicolas Grunitzky, who had been the first and only premier
of autonomous Togoland, before complete independence, was invited to return
from exile and assume the presidency. Eyadema rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel
and Chief of Staff. Dissatisfied by cabinet infighting and dissentions in
the country, Eyadema seized power in a coup on 670113.1943
Sophie Henriette Taeuber-Arp (Täuber), Swiss
painter, sculptor, and designer, born on 19 January 1889. — more
with links to images.1941 James Joyce, in Zurich,
Switzerland, novelist.

1939 Four persons in crash of a Northwest Airlines Lockheed
Electra 14, following a cockpit fire, in Miles City.1930 George
Gardner Symons, US painter born in 1863. — links
to images.1915 Some 30'000 people in
earthquake in Avezzano Italy, which totally destroys Avezzano
and the surrounding small towns. [views
of Avezzano before the quake]1882 Wilhelm Alexander Meyerheim,
German artist born in 1815. 1864 Stephen Foster,
37, composer (My Old Kentucky Home), dies in a New York hospital (now Stephen
Foster Memorial Day)1842 Some Afghan guerillas and the last
of the British and Indian troops
retreating from Kabul, massacred by the guerillas since the
06 January 1842 start of the retreat. There is one single British survivor:
Dr. William
Brydon [10 Oct 1811 – 20 Mar 1873], who, wounded and exhausted, arriving
near Jalalabad in the afternoon, on his nearly moribund horse, would be
depicted by Elizabeth
Butler [03 Nov 1846 – 02 Oct 1933] in The
Remnants of an Army (1879, 132x234cm; 291x512pix, 20kb). —(070113)1804 Pietro Antonio Novelli III, Italian painter born in
1729.  links1761 Franz-Christoph Janneck, Austrian
artist born on 03 October 1703.1699 Mattia Preti il
Cavaliere Calabrese, Italian painter born in 1613. 
MORE
ON PRETI AT ART 4 JANUARYwith
links to images.

1691 George Fox, 67, English founder
of the Society of Friends
(Quakers). Fox left the Anglican church at 23 and founded the Quaker movement
in 1660 at age 36.1625 Jan Velvet Brueghel Sr. (Bloemenbruegel),
Flemish painter born in 1568.  MORE
ON BRUEGHEL AT ART 4 JANUARYwith links to images. 1547 Earl Henry Howard of Surrey, 30, poet, son of the
Duke of Norfolk, executed as a Roman Catholic falsely accused of intrigues
in the succession of the moribund Heny VIII 1330 Frederick (III) the Handsome, duke of Austrian/German
anti-king 0888 Charles III the Fat One, King of Franconia/Roman
emperor, 0858 Aethelwolf king of Wessex (Battle at Aclea)

0533 Saint
Remigius of Reims, about 96, first bishop of Reims (459-533)

^1942 The US War Production Board is established
by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Business executive Donald M. Nelson is named its chairman. This was
not the first time Roosevelt called on Nelson. In 1940, the president
asked Nelson, then executive vice president of Sears, Roebuck and
Co., to head up the National Defense Advisory Commission. As Roosevelt
established agency after agency to coordinate the transition of industry
from peacetime to wartime production, Nelson skipped among jobs, becoming
director of purchases for the Office of Production Management and,
in August 1941, director of the Supply Priorities and Allocations
Board. The War Production Board, created to establish order out of
the chaos of meeting extraordinary wartime demands and needs, replaced
the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board.
As chairman, Nelson oversaw the largest war production in history,
often clashing with civilian factories over the most efficient means
of converting to wartime use and butting heads with the armed forces
over priorities. Despite early success, Nelson made a major judgement
error in June 1944, on the eve of the Normandy invasion, when he allowed
certain plants that had reached the end of their government/military
production contracts to reconvert to civilian use. The military knew
the war was far from over and feared a sudden shortage of vital supplies.
A political battle ensued, and Nelson was eased out of his office
and reassigned by the president to be his personal representative
to Chiang Kai-shek in China.

1906 first radio set advertised (Telimco for $7.50 in
Scientific American) claims to receive signals at up to one mile
1902 Menger,
mathematician.1901 A.B. Guthrie Jr., US novelist
who died on 26 April 1991. 1900 Cox,
mathematician.

^1893
Clark Ashton Smith, US poet and novelist, who died
on Monday 14 August 1961. Secondarily, he
was also an artist. Friday
13 January 1893: Clark Ashton Smith is born to Fanny and Timeus Smith,
in Long Valley, California. Smith passes a happy childhood, apart
from frequent illnesses. His school attendance is intermittent. The
first 5 elementary grades he attends at the old red school-house some
6 km out of old Auburn. Of these first 5 grades Smith later estimates
he had attended only about 4 full school years. The last 3 elementary
grades he attends at the old elementary school on Lincoln Way in Auburn,
from which he graduates. His parents take his further higher education
in hand. On his own, Smith learns Latin, well enough to read the Latin
poets with ease and enjoyment. Also on his own, he goes through Webster's
Unabridged Dictionary, from end to end, studying every word and its
etymology. Later, Smith refuses a Guggenheim scholarship to the University
of California, at Berkeley, on the premise he can do better on his
own. 1902: The Smith family moves
to Indian Ridge (Boulder Ridge), a couple of kilometers out of old
Auburn. Here Timeus Smith, with the help of his 9-year-old son, had
built a cabin. 1904: At the age
of 11, Smith undertakes "his first literary efforts . . . fairy
tales and imitations of THE ARABIAN NIGHTS." The frequent illnesses
of his childhood had permitted Smith to develop "an early taste
for reading": now in 1904 he writes fairy tales modeled on those
of the Countess D'Aulnoy and of Hans Christian Anderson. Somewhat
later he writes long and complicated stories derived from THE ARABIAN
NIGHTS, Beckford's VATHEK (one of the chief literary enthusiasms of
his adolescence), and Rudyard Kipling's tales of India.
Circa 1905-1910: Composes "long adventure novels of Oriental
life, and much mediocre verse." 1906; At the age of 13, Smith
discovers in a grammar-school library the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe,
and begins to write verse, including not only the expected imitations
of Poe but also imitations of the RUBAIYAT of Omar Khayyam (in the
standard translation of Edward Fitzgerald). He gradually acquires
a feeling for metre and rhythm. September 1907: At the age of 14,
about 4 months before his 15th birthday, Smith discovers the poetry
of George Sterling: A WINE OF WIZARDRY, first published in The Cosmopolitan
for September 1907. 1908: At the age of 15, Smith discovers William
Beckford's Oriental fantasy VATHEK, which he rereads many times, and
which exerts a considerable influence on both his early and later
fiction. 1910: Sells his first
poems to magazines. 1910-1912: Has his first 4 professional short
stories published, "contes cruels with Oriental themes."
3 of these derive directly from 3 juvenile tales included in an early
notebook used by Smith under the title TALES OF INDIA. Despite such
encouragement, Smith abandons fiction until the middle and late 1920's;
and devotes most of his creative energies to verse during the period
1911-1926. January 1911: Receives
his first letter from George Sterling, the poet of the west, the unofficial
poet laureate of the west coast. Smith's first letter to Sterling
had been written for him by Edith J. Hamilton, teacher of English
literature at Placer Union High School, and friend to both Smith and
Sterling. The Smith-Sterling correspondence is to last until shortly
before Sterling's death in November 1926. They meet many times in
person, and become great friends. Sterling acts as mentor to Smith,
and as a helpful critic of Smith's poetry, the cause of which he does
much to promote. 1911: Smith creates Nero, Ode to the Abyss, and other
remarkable poems. 1911-1912: Creates most of the poems included in
THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS.
June-July 1912: Smith spends a month or so at Sterling's place in
Carmel. He experiences for the first time the works of Baudelaire
(in translation). Early August
1912 (the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th): The 4 major daily newspapers of San
Francisco, together with the leading weekly, discover Smith and acclaim
him in extravagant terms: Clark Ashton Smith, the Boy Poet ... Boy
is Poetic Genius.. Lonely Sierras Inspire Muse ... California Youth
Is Hailed by Critics as Poetical Genius ... Writes Poems Pronounced
by Literati as Ranking with Best of Keats and Byron ... Sierra Teaches
Poetry to Boy of Its Peaks. 19-Year-Old Lad from a Ranch in Mountains
Is Singer That Amazes. New Shelley, Say Critics. Predict Book of Verse
by Grammar School Graduate Will Show Genius ... Auburn's Precocious
Genius ... Genius Flashes from the Sierra. Auburn Boy Is Called Keats'
Equal ... October 1912: Echoes
of the San Francisco press's discovery and extravagant acclamation
of Smith, reach the east coast: Current Literature for October
1912, in the dept. Recent Poetry, makes a report and quotes from Smith's
poetry. November 1912: A. M. Robertson
publishes THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS, Smith's first collection
of verse and his first book. The over-all critical reaction —
mostly from the California, i.e., San Francisco, press proves quite
favorable. 1912-1922: Smith creates
the poems included in EBONY AND CRYSTAL, POEMS IN VERSE AND PROSE.
1912-1914: Creates his first poems in prose. 1913-1921: Suffers 8
years of ill health, including a "nervous breakdown" and
"incipient t.b." January
1915: By this date reportedly more than a thousand copies of THE STAR-TREADER
have been sold (probable number of copies originally printed, 2000).
1915-1921: Smith creates the POEMS IN PROSE included in EBONY AND
CRYSTAL. Smith's principal models are the PETITS POEMES EN PROSE (also
called LE SPLEEN DE PARIS) of Baudelaire; and especially the collection
PASTELS IN PROSE (published in 1890), translated from the French of
23l. 1918-1928: Smith makes numerous
drawings and paintings, ranging from the weird and grotesque to the
decorative and semi-naturalistic. Some are exhibited in New York and
in cities on the west coast. He sells a few and gives many away.
June 1918: The Book Club of California,
San Francisco, publishes ODES AND SONNETS, an édition de luxe.
Town Talk, the Pacific Weekly, gives the book its one and
only review, quite favorable. Autumn 1919: Smith meets Mrs. Genevieve
K. Sully, with whom he becomes a close friend; their friendship lasts
for over 40 years. 20 February
1920: Smith completes the first draft of The Hashish-Eater; or
The Apocalypse of Evil, the longest and the greatest of his poems.
Over-all time for completing the first draft: ten days.
1921-1925: Creates the poems included in SANDALWOOD. August 1922:
Receives his first letter from H. P. Lovecraft. Smith answers, and
thus begins a friendship through correspondence that is to last until
Lovecraft's death in March 1937. They never meet in person. December
1922: Publishes himself his 2nd major poetry collection EBONY AND
CRYSTAL, POEMS IN VERSE AND PROSE. The over-all critical reaction
(mostly from the California press), like that accorded THE STAR-TREADER,
proves quite favorable. April 1923-January
1926: Smith becomes a "journalist" and contributes both
poems and epigrams to The Auburn Journal, to discharge part
of his indebtedness to B. A. Cassidy, the proprietor and editor, for
the expenses incurred in the printing of EBONY AND CRYSTAL by The
Auburn Journal Press. Occasionally the epigrams, apothegms, etc.,
include a few serious and often profoundly beautiful pensées
which are one with the expansive lyricism of the poems.
1924: Smith writes the very short story Something New, quite
unlike Smith's later fiction; published in 10 Story Book
for August 1924. 26 February 1925: Creates the longsome “poem
in prose” The Passing of Aphrodite. Also, in 1925,Smith
writes what he considers his "first weird story" The
Abominations of Yondo. Later in the same year he writes the story
Sadastor. 1925: Starting
in about March, Smith learns French on his own, and shortly thereafter,
makes his first verse translations of poems by Baudelaire. October
1925: Publishes himself his 3rd major poetry collection SANDALWOOD,
including 19 translations from the French of Charles Pierre Baudelaire.
The three reviews are favorable. 1925-1929: Smith makes many prose
translations of poems by Baudelaire.
Wednesday, November 17, 1926: George Sterling, Smith's great friend
and mentor, dies at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, presumably
by suicide. December 1926: Smith creates the magnificent threnody
To George Sterling: A Valediction.
1926-1929: Creates a considerable number of poems in French.
Before September 1928: Smith writes the short story The Ninth
Skeleton. 1928-1929: Resumes the creation of original verse in
English, in some quantity, with the cycle of love poems THE JASMINE
GIRDLE, included in Smith's SELECTED POEMS. Beginning of the Depression,
1929: Smith commences writing his later fiction, and during 1929-1938
he creates over 100 short stories (many of them virtually condensed
novels) stylistically and imaginatively growing out of his poems in
verse and prose of 1911-1926. Also
during this period, Smith illustrates some of his own stories with
black and white line-drawings; these are not characteristic of his
best pictorial work as his real forte lies in color. December 1929:
Creates about 10 poems in prose later designated as PROSE PASTELS.
April 27, 1933 (The Auburn Journal):
"Clark Ashton Smith Declared Greatest American Poet." June
1933: Smith publishes himself a pamphlet of 6 of his finest short
stories under the title THE DOUBLE SHADOW AND OTHER FANTASIES.
1934: Resumes the production of verse
in quantity. Circa April 1935:
Almost by accident, Smith begins making small sculptures from California
rock. In April 1934, autoing up from Oakland, E. Hoffmann Price had
visited the Smiths for the first time. Price wanted mineral specimens
for a museum curator in the east. Smith took Price on a visit to an
old copper mine of which Smith's uncle, Ed Gaylord, was part owner
at the time. From the resultant automobile-full of divers rocks, ores
and minerals, Smith kept a few specimens for himself. One year later
it occurred to him he might carve something from a characteristic
specimen: the resultant first carving was "the head of a hybrid
grotesque, something between a hyena and a horned toad." By Summer
1949, Smith had carved almost 200 sculptures; and he had shipped some
of them as far afield as Hawaii, England, and South Africa. Smith
ordinarily made his carvings from native rocks and minerals, usually
soft stones workable with a pen-knife.
Monday 09 September 1935: Fanny Smith, née Mary Francis Gaylord
in 1850, Smith's mother, dies. November 1935: Smith begins putting
together INCANTATIONS, a collection of miscellaneous poems rather
than a connected cycle. Smith eventually includes the collection in
his SELECTED POEMS. December 1936:
Lovecraft writes his last poem, the sonnet To Klarkash-Ton, Lord of
Averoigne; first published in Weird Tales for April 1938 under the
title To Clark Ashton Smith. 15 March 1937: Smith's great friend,
confrère, and correspondent, dies at the age of 47. 31 March
1937: Smith creates the beautiful threnody To Howard Phillips Lovecraft;
first published in Weird Tales for July 1937.
May 1937: The Futile Press of Lakeport, California, publishes the
slender collection NERO AND OTHER POEMS (a small selection of reprints,
with some alterations, from THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS). Circa
August 1937: Benjamin De Casseres, in the brief appreciation Clark
Ashton Smith, Emperor of Shadows, writes: "He is brother prince
to Poe, Baudelaire, Shelley, Rimbaud, Laforgue, Leconte de Lisle,
Keats, Chopin, Blake and El Greco." (First published by The Futile
Press circa November 1937.) Sunday 26 December 1937: Smith's father,
Timeus, dies at the age of 82. He had been born in England in 1855.
1938: Smith's last regular year as
a writer of fiction. Numerous factors have led to Smith's cessation
of fiction-writing. The chief reason is Smith's growing disgust with
pulp fantasy and with the restrictions imposed upon its writers. The
death of his mother in 1935, that of his great friend Lovecraft in
1937, and that of his father later in the same year, had taken from
him some of his chief sources of immediate encouragement, Also, Smith
finds the production of sculptures much easier and more enjoyable
than that of fiction. He needs to do more living than writing, and
once he has done so, he returns to the full-time creation of poetry.
From 1939 until his death, Smith once again is first and foremost
the lyric poet: during this time he writes little more than a dozen
stories. Another factor, an important physical one, prevents Smith
from returning to the full-time production of prose fiction, at least
during the 1940's. During this decade, he experiences much eye-strain,
making arduous or next to impossible the long sessions of typing required
by the composition of short stories. The typing of his SELECTED POEMS,
limited to short sessions, he is able to do.
13 July 1941: in a letter Smith writes: "I've been away from
Auburn much of the time during the past 2 and 2/3 years, and have
done more living than writing. Had got to the point where it was absolutely
necessary. Now I'm trying to settle down to literary production again."
Early in 1938, Smith receives a visit from the poet Eric Barker and
the dancer Madelynne Greene (Mrs. Eric Barker), at that time living
in San Rafael. They exchange many visits and become the best of friends.
Until 1955, the three remain very close. 1939-1947: Smith creates
the remarkable cycle of love poems THE HILL OF DIONYSUS (included
in his SELECTED POEMS). Circa 1939:
Exhibition of Smith's pictures and sculptures at Gump's in San Francisco.
Alfred Frankenstein, the distinguished art critic, compares the sculptures
to preColumbian art. This is the earliest exhibit of sculptures by
Smith. January 1942: Exhibition
of Smith's paintings and sculptures and mss. at the Crocker Art Gallery,
Sacramento. This is the second exhibit of sculptures by Smith. August
1942: Arkham House publishes Smith's first book of short stories OUT
OF SPACE AND TIME.

September 1944-December 1949: Smith produces his SELECTED POEMS.
Of the over 700 poems by Smith known to be extant at the time of
his death, over 500 are included in this collection.
October 1944: Publication of Smith's
second book of short stories LOST WORLDS. Circa the late 1940's,
Smith assists Kenneth Yasuda with the "Englishing" of
haiku from the Japanese. He becomes fascinated with the form's possibilities
in English and creates over 100 haiku, many of which he includes
in his SELECTED POEMS, in the section EXPERIMENTS IN HAIKU.
October 1948: Publication of Smith's
third book of short stories GENIUS LOCI AND OTHER TALES. Late 1948
and early 1949: On his own, Smith learns Spanish, makes his first
translations of Spanish poetry, and writes his first poems in Spanish.
Summer 1949: Smith resumes his painting and begins by retouching
some old pictures; he experiments with making pigments from local
earths and minerals.
1950-1951: Smith continues to create
new poems both in English and in Spanish. December 1951: Arkham
House publishes Smith's sixth volume of verse THE DARK CHATEAU.
18 of its 40 poems are taken from the SELECTED POEMS. Many of the
other 22 pieces, most of them created after the SELECTED POEMS,
are outstanding.
1952-1961: Smith still sculpts but
creates only a little verse and prose. Sometime shortly after the
publication of THE DARK CHATEAU, he has the first of a series of
strokes which gradually lead to his death in 1961. Late 1954: While
visiting his poet-friend Eric Barker at Little Sur, Smith meets
Carol Jones Dorman, of Pacific Grove. They fall in love, and are
married in Auburn on Wednesday, 10 November 1954.
1954-1961: Smith maintains his residence
alternately in Pacific Grove and near Auburn. Sometime after 1954:
Smith creates the beautiful sonnet to his wife which begins: "From
this my heart, a haunted Elsinore, / I send the phantoms packing
for thy sake:"
March 1958: Publication of Smith's
seventh volume of verse SPELLS AND PHILTRES with the "Dedication
to Carol." 52 of its 60 poems are taken from the SELECTED POEMS.
February 1960: Publication of Smith's
fourth book of short stories THE ABOMINATIONS OF YONDO. June 4th,
1961: Smith creates his last poem, the sonnet in alexandrines Cycles.
July 1961: Writes his last story The Dart of Rasasfa; it
proves unpublishable.

^1834 Horatio Alger Jr. Revere
MA, one of the most popular US authors in the last 30 years of the
19th century and perhaps the most socially influential US writer of
his generation. Alger was the
son of a Unitarian minister, Horatio Alger, Sr. During the Civil War
he was rejected for army service. Alger was ordained in 1864, and
he accepted the pulpit of a church in Brewster, Mass., but he was
forced to leave in 1866 following allegations of sexual activities
with local boys. In that year he moved to New York City, and, with
the publication and sensational success of Ragged Dick; or, Street
Life in New York with the Bootblacks (serialized in 1867, published
in book form in 1868), the story of a poor shoeshine boy who rises
to wealth, Alger found his lifelong theme. In the more than 100 books
that he would write over 30 years, Alger followed the rags-to-riches
formula that he had hit upon in his first book. The success of Ragged
Dick led Alger to actively support charitable institutions for
the support of foundlings and runaway boys. It was in this atmosphere
that Alger wrote stories of boys who rose from poverty to wealth and
fame, stories that were to make him famous and contribute the "Alger
hero" to the US language. In a steady succession of books that are
almost alike except for the names of their characters, he preached
that by honesty, cheerful perseverance, and hard work, the poor but
virtuous lad would have his just reward, though the reward was almost
always precipitated by a stroke of good luck. Alger's novels had enormous
popular appeal at a time when great personal fortunes were being made
and seemingly unbounded opportunities for advancement existed in the
United States' burgeoning industrial cities. Alger's most popular
books were the Ragged Dick, Luck and Pluck, and Tattered
Tom series. His books sold over 20 million copies, even though
their plots, characterizations, and dialogue were consistently and
even outrageously bad. Alger died on 18 July 1899.
ALGER ONLINE:

1818 Adrianus Eversen, Dutch artist who died in 18971808 Salmon Chase, US politician/lawyer who died on 07
May 1873.1808 Jorgen Roed, Danish artist who died
on 03 August 1888. — more1806 Willem Bodeman, Dutch artist who died in 1880.1801 Anton van Isendyck (or Isendyck),
Belgian artist who died on 14 October 1875.1778 Sir Isaac
Goldsmid, English financier who died on 27 April 1859.1596
Jan Josefszoon van Goyen, Dutch landscape painter who died on 27
April 1656  MORE
ON VAN GOYEN AT ART 4 JANUARYwith links to images. 1505 Joachim II Hector
ruler (Brandenburg) 1381 Saint
Colette abbess/reformer (Poor Clares)

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do giant sea monsters eat? (answer
tomorrow)

Thoughts for the day:
“It's useless to play lullabies for those who cannot sleep.”
— “inventor of sounds” John
Cage [05 Sep 1912 – 12 Aug 1992]“It's NOT useless to play lullabies for those who cannot
sleep: it has charms to soothe their savage breast.” —
“John Uncaged”
“It's useless to play lullabies for those who are asleep.”
“It's NOT useless to play lullabies for those who are asleep: it promotes
sweet dreams.”— “John Uncaged”“I can't understand why people are frightened of new
ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.” — John Cage “I can't understand why people are frightened of ideas.
I'm frightened of the lack of ideas.” — “John Uncaged”
“If you don't have enough time to accomplish something, consider the work
finished once it's begun.” — John Cage — {Now you
know why his music sounds unfinished...}“If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.”
— John Cage — {especially if you're French}